1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a damper lever for an upright piano, provided as part of a damper, which is pressed against a vibrating string to stop the vibration in response to a released key, in order to stop sound which has been generated from the vibrating string.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, a damper used in an upright piano comprises a damper lever flange, a damper lever pivotably mounted to the damper lever flange and extending in the vertical direction, a damper head attached to an upper end of the damper lever, and a damper lever spring for urging the damper lever backward toward an associated string. The conventional damper lever is made of a synthetic resin such as an ABS resin or a wood material. In a key released state, the damper head is in contact with and pressed against a vertically stretched string by an urging force of the damper lever spring.
As a player touches a key, the damper lever is driven or pressed by a spoon attached to a wippen, and pivotally moves against the urging force of the damper lever spring, causing the damper head to move away from the string. Then, the string is struck from the front in this state for vibration, thereby generating sound. Subsequently, as the key is released, the damper lever performs operations reverse to those associated with a key touch process, causing the damper head to come into contact with the string from the front at a point different from the point struck by the hammer. Then, the damper head is pressed against the string with the urging force of the damper lever spring, causing the string and damper to vibrate together, and the vibrations rapidly attenuate to lose the sound (damping).
As described above, in the upright piano, the damper head is pressed against the string from the front in the same manner as the hammer by the urging force of the damper lever spring to attenuate vibrations of the string, thus stopping the sound. Due to the configuration as described above, the upright piano requires a relatively long time for stopping the sound. For this reason, when the same key is repeatedly touched, for example, the associated string fails to normally vibrate in some cases even if the hammer strikes the string. Specifically, when the same key is repeatedly touched, the string is repeatedly struck in sequence, so that if a long time is taken to attenuate the vibrations of the string and damper, the damper head moves away from the string in response to a key touch before the vibration of the string, generated by the preceding striking, has not been sufficiently attenuated. Therefore, the string is struck the next time while the vibration of the string still remains, possibly resulting in a failure in normally vibrating the string to generate clear play sound. While it is contemplated to increase the spring force of the damper lever spring for improving the repetitive touching capabilities, the increased spring force will adversely affect the key touch feeling.
Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-318042, for example, discloses an action for a conventional piano (pages 5-7, FIGS. 1, 2). This action, which basically has the same configuration as ordinary actions, comprises a wippen carried on a key in a key released state, a repetition lever pivotably attached to the wippen, a jack, and the like. The wippen comprises a molding made of an ABS resin containing carbon fibers for reinforcement, and therefore has a very high rigidity. The high rigidity permits the formation of a plurality of recesses on a left and a right side surface of the wippen in order to maximally reduce the weight of the wippen. Consequently, the wippen operates with agility to strike a string at an earlier timing, thus improving the responsibility of the action to a key touch.
The damper is also provided in grand pianos. This damper presses against a horizontally stretched string near a point struck by a hammer from above by its self weight, thereby attenuating vibrations of the string to stop sound. Thus, the grand piano can effectively attenuate the vibrations of the string to promptly stop the sound, so that even when the same key is repeatedly touched, the grand piano is free from the aforementioned drawbacks experienced by the upright piano.